The girls want to work hard and go again: Janneke Schopman

Much has changed in the last year. Sjoerd Marijne made way for Janneke Schopman as the head coach. Wayne Lombard quit as the scientific advisor. The face of the team and skipper Rani Rampal has been sidelined - battling injuries - which has seen goalkeeper Savita Punia assume leadership role. In their first major outing after the Tokyo Games - the World Cup - the team finished a disappointing ninth recently. They were let down by lack of on-field conversion of opportunities and poor success rate in penalty corners. In the six matches they played, India earned 31 penalty corners and converted a mere three.

Read AlsoPenalty corner execution requires improvement, says Indian women's hockey team coach Schopman

Women's hockey team coach Janneke Schopman on Tuesday said India's penalty corner execution requires massive improvements if they are to not repeat their World Cup debacle in the Commonwealth Games.

Going into the Commonwealth Games, beginning in Birmingham on July 28, this will be a major cause for concern. India, who will open their campaign against Ghana on July 29, touched down in Nottingham on Sunday for the final leg of their preparations. Admitting the team fell short at the World Cup, head coach Schopman said, "In terms of outcome, our performance was not good enough." On the lack of execution during penalty corners, the former Netherlands defender said, "We created a lot of penalty corners which was good, but our execution failed. In terms of injection we struggled with the pitch. It was a different pitch from what we train on and I don't think we adapted well. Going forward, it has to be about perfecting our execution and that is something we need to focus on over the next few days before the Commonwealth